Google Analytics to Protect AdSense Earnings

Like most writers engaging in the enterprise of writing to make money online, I use Google Analytics as one of the ways to track how much traffic comes to my various websites and articles, and just as importantly, where they come from. Like most things Google, Analytics is a free utility offered to any webmaster with a Google account and it runs relatively fast based on a small snippet of JavaScript code that you load onto your webpage. If you use WordPress, there are dozens of Google Analytics plugins for WordPress that you can use.

In addition to tracking visitors to your website and showing you how they get there and what they do once they arrive, there may be another undocumented benefit to using Analytics on your websites.

It seems that some members of various Internet Marketing forums recommend that you install Google Analytics on your legitimate websites using AdSense as a way to protect your AdSense earnings. Google, of course, only offers Analytics for “free” because they get something back out of it. Not only do you get all of those stats and data, but so does Google thanks to the tracking script webmasters so willingly place on every webpage on their websites. That same data can be used to exonerate you in the event that your AdSense clicks look fishy.

Google Analytics Proof of Legitimate AdSense Earnings?

Assume for a moment that Google’s AdWords program (the advertiser side of the AdSense program) suspects your website of something shifty in regards to AdSense. Without Analytics installed, the only thing Google AdWords can rely on is the data that comes in with AdWords (which is not insubstantial). However, if there might be another explanation, Google could also check the data it receives from Analytics as a way to either corroborate reports of nefarious conduct, or, in the case of good writers trying to make money writing online, as a way to exonerate your efforts as a AdSense Publisher.

There is no proof that Google does or does not use Analytics for this purpose, but since you need to do something to track your visitors and your progress building traffic and passive writing income, you may as well install Analytics anyway.

Of course, if you’re a scumbag, you might want to uninstall Google Analytics right away.